What was once an old abandoned gas station rife with contamination in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood is now a beautiful, sustainable green space thanks to the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga Land Bank and The Finch Group real estate company.
The plaza is part of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), which aims to provide healthy, equitable and sustainable opportunities to build wealth and stabilize neighborhoods. It is located next to The Finch Group’s new Glenville CircleNorth mixed-use development project. CircleNorth includes 63 market-rate apartments, 9,600 square feet of co-sharing workspace and 4,600 square feet of retail incubator space, the latter funded and operated by the Cleveland Citywide Development Corp. and the City of Cleveland’s Department of Economic Development.
The Cuyahoga Land Bank acquired via tax foreclosure the long-shuttered gas station on the corner of E. 105th and Ashbury in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood in 2015, and over the next three years conducted Phase I and Phase II assessments on the property to determine the extent of contamination on the site; applied for and was awarded funding from the Ohio Development Services Agency’s Abandoned Gas Station Cleanup Grant; removed the tanks; demolished the gas station structure; and cleared the site of contaminated soils.
“Gus Frangos and the team at the Cuyahoga Land Bank were very important to this first project of Mayor Jackson’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative in the Glenville neighborhood,” says Mark Dodds, Principal Architect at The Finch Group. “Not only did they work with EPA and ODSA to clean up a contaminated parcel allowing a new community plaza to be built, but they were also instrumental in getting the new Fisher Houses built directly across the street.The Fisher Houses complement our Circle North development, extending the vibrant University Circle into Glenville. The entire block has been transformed, and the Cuyahoga Land Bank was an invaluable partner to The Finch Group and the City of Cleveland to get this done.”
Read more for a timeline on how this project came to life HERE.